Does one part of the EU nomekultura talk to another part of the nomenkultura? The LEAP report gleefully predicts the future "in the US, Spanish is the ascending language to the detriment of English in many states; in the UK, the rise of Celtic languages conveyed by the claims of independent or separatist movements in Ireland, Wales and Scotland, erodes the share of English on the British Isles (only the third mother-tongue spoken in the EU, fastly decreasing).

Another place where the report makes claims that appears unjustified by facts is their assertion (without evidence) of the growth of German and French. Again EUROSTAT contradicts this claim. Question: Where do new second-language speakers learn the second language. Answer: The schools. Again EUROSTAT offers evidence ignored or discarded by the "LEAP team" http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php?title=File:Foreign_languages_learnt_per_pupil_in_secondary_education,_2005_and_2010_(1)_(%25).png&filetimestamp=20121001105852

Here, we are told the percentage of secondary pupils learning English French and German in 2010. Considering the EU as a whole, EU27 figures: English 92.7%, French 23.2%, German 23.9% Considering individual EU countries - Students of English outnumber students of German in every country except the UK, Ireland and Luxembourg. In the latter, the compulsory (i.e. 100%) teaching of both French and German outnumbers the mere 97.6% who voluntarily choose to learn English. Indeed, except in these 3 cases, the number of students learning English outnumbers those learning French and German combined.

I don't know where the LEAP report drew up it's conclusions, but it doesn't seem to be based on facts.

The EU is a nascent empire, presently undergoing a painful phase of strengthening and internal unrest (as is sometimes the case in this kind of 'historical' enterprises, whatever merit one decides to attach to them). An empire needs a strong, centralized administration and a common élite culture (to be promoted as the dominant thoght to the masses, especially to the young and the ambitious eager to join the ranks of the rulers). This not only suggests, but imposes the adoption of a common language. There's no empire without a dominant language, and the EU is nothing less than an (aspiring) empire. The problem wouldn't even exist if: 1) The French wouldn't feel that they still have enough power to impose bilingualism, and, very recently, 2) the Germans hadn't thought that they have no less right to have their language recognized as the dominant language of Europe as the French. The current EU élite is already perfectly bilingual (English and French are 'de rigeur' for every young graduate looking to become a Eurocrat), and German is becoming an asset ever more prized. Now, having three 'dominant' languages, as the EU looks set to do, is highly counterproductive and discriminating. It is counterproductive because pretending to teach three languages to millions of people is silly, too expensive and an effort doomed to failure. It is discriminating because the only people who will be able to master all three dominant languages will be those who had the chance to learn one of them as their mother tongue. The rest of the continent will be faced with this magnanimous choice: either learning four languages at a very good level (their 'useless' mother tongue, plus the language of the new masters: English, French and German) or live as illiterate subjects, excluded by the most prestigious jobs. A masterpiece for creating a 'two-speed' Europe where half of the continent will spend its youth learning an insane amount of languages, where a few will access the top jobs (and be considered 'European' native speakers) simply by birth right, and - again - the laughing stock of the rest of the world. What a bunch of amateurs..

I don't understand the fuss about "teaching three languages to millions of students" being silly. All German high school students study at least two foreign languages anyway, most of them three. It does not seem so very difficult to me.

Full citizenship in a future European superstate will require an almost perfect competency in at least one foreign language (not just an 'average' familiarity with it), in order for people to participate to the political and social debate at the continental level. That means that English (which, like it or not, will become such common language) will not only have to be learned, but will have to be learned almost perfectly, and that's no trifling matter, even for people belonging to the Germanic linguistic group. That's all should be required from EU citizens to live in a new nation (the European superstate). The knowledge of other languages is super-fine, provided it's not a sneaky way to impose a second/third 'official' language. The EU is not Canada, where nearly all citizens speak one of two languages: it's a union of (at present) 28 countries and more than 20 languages. There is no reason on earth why, after having all learned one language through which we can communicate with one another, other languages should be considered more than 'cultural' subjects (that everyone may learn, if they feel like doing so, not because they are a requirement for 'full' citizenship). Adding another 'official' language to the union would mean treating those who cannot perfectly muster English and this supplementary language (which, like it or not, would be French) as second class citizens, banned from important jobs. Adding a very good knowledge of a third language (German) as a prerequisite to be an 'EU leader' would be a colossal waste of talent (considering that these young folks would probably also study Latin and/or ancient Greek, and someone might want to study also some non-European language, God forbid..), plunged into countless dictionaries and grammar books instead of devoting time to other branches of knowledge (like maths, sciences, history etc.). Plus, this crazy arrangement would be a slap in the face of 60m Italians, 50m Spaniards, 40m poles, etc. who would wonder why their languages have suddenly the same status of Maltese. Briefly: if the French are not ready to accept that people can work for the EU without knowing their language, and if the Germans cannot look at the scene without crying: "We have the money, we want to impose an official language too!", I guess that we're still decades away from creating a functioning polity. Having said that, everyone should be free to learn all the languages they want, private employers will give a fair market value to the knowledge of each language and the people that today study foreign language because they admire a certain literature, culture or country will continue to do so. What I dread is an EU school where the teaching is in English, French and Germans and 'local' languages (the rest) are destined to become 'dialects'.

Full citizenship in a future European superstate will require an almost perfect competency in at least one foreign language (not just an 'average' familiarity with it), in order for people to participate to the political and social debate at the continental level. That means that English (which, like it or not, will become such common language) will not only have to be learned, but will have to be learned almost perfectly, and that's no trifling matter, even for people belonging to the Germanic linguistic group. That's all should be required from EU citizens to live in a new nation (the European superstate). The knowledge of other languages is super-fine, provided it's not a sneaky way to impose a second/third 'official' language. The EU is not Canada, where nearly all citizens speak one of two languages: it's a union of (at present) 28 countries and more than 20 languages. There is no reason on earth why, after having all learned one language through which we can communicate with one another, other languages should be considered more than 'cultural' subjects (that everyone may learn, if they feel like doing so, not because they are a requirement for 'full' citizenship). Adding another 'official' language to the union would mean treating those who cannot perfectly muster English and this supplementary language (which, like it or not, would be French) as second class citizens, banned from important jobs. Adding a very good knowledge of a third language (German) as a prerequisite to be an 'EU leader' would be a colossal waste of talent (considering that these young folks would probably also study Latin and/or ancient Greek, and someone might want to study also some non-European language, God forbid..), plunged into countless dictionaries and grammar books instead of devoting time to other branches of knowledge (like maths, sciences, history etc.). Plus, this crazy arrangement would be a slap in the face of 60m Italians, 50m Spaniards, 40m poles, etc. who would wonder why their languages have suddenly the same status of Maltese. Briefly: if the French are not ready to accept that people can work for the EU without knowing their language, and if the Germans cannot look at the scene without crying: "We have the money, we want to impose an official language too!", I guess that we're still decades away from creating a functioning polity. Having said that, everyone should be free to learn all the languages they want, private employers will give a fair market value to the knowledge of each language and the people that today study foreign language because they admire a certain literature, culture or country will continue to do so. What I dread is an EU school where the teaching is in English, French and Germans and 'local' languages (the rest) are destined to become 'dialects'.

It is quite interesting your point of view about the "rest of the languages". I really wonder if Spanish, Russian (mother tongue of plenty EU citizens)or Portuguese are less useful than French or German. Indeed, unless you are sure to live your whole life in the continent German makes absolutely no point to be learned before the other 3 languages (Not even for engineers). Writing from Germany.

This must be hard for some people.
When we discuss the hypothetical issue of Europe choosing a pan-European language other than English, we need not necessarily consider whether the US of A will approve.

India has hundreds of languages, literally and many of those languages are prospering at a local level. A lot of states learn English, Hindi AND their local language. This does not seem to have compromised anyone's culture.

If you take states such as Assam or the south indian states, they know english but not Hindi, but even while conducting official work in a foreign language these places are strongly regional.

My own state Maharashtra changed the script of it's language (Marathi) and used the same script that hindi uses. This means that people read two languages with one script.

I am highlighting these not as guidelines as to what Europe should do, but as an example of what flexibility and a co operative adjusting attitude of everyone involved will make most people happy.

If one official language is not enough, have two, have three. Students learn three and four languages in school anyways, it does not do them any harm. And most most people in may countries are patriotic enough to preserve their own culture in face of many odds.

"I am highlighting these not as guidelines as to what Europe should do, but as an example of what flexibility and a co operative adjusting attitude of everyone involved will make most people happy."

Yes. But what if the flexibility always has to come from one side? Native English speakers speaking English in Europe, and the rest of Europe speaking English too?

Not really co-operative, if you ask me. Makes me think a lot of Belgium. A bilingual country where Francophones could speak French everywhere. The Dutch-speaking population could speak French everywhere as well. Very flexible. It's an attitude that created problems Belgium hasn't overcome yet.

In the case of Belgium I am no authority.
But my experience with language based politics is that Language is not the reason of division, but rather language is used to create an "Us and Them" mentality that can be used to leverage public opinion in politics.
To make an endeavour such as the European Union work there has to be co-operation. Everyone will have to swallow their pride a bit.
Whether the official language is English or not is not for me to decide. I think the best way is to have two official languages, maybe three (it might work!).
From a world prospective- not having English as one of the official languages is only going to make it more difficult for the rest of the world to communicate with Europe. In an age where everyone is increasingly interconnected and English is the worlds most widely spoken language, it would be just impractical.

Hi,
Johnson: Just speak English? “HOW should the European Union manage its multilingualism?” Everybody must have the right to pronounce everything foreign in English. An alternative would be something neutral such as the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen German dialect, which as it happens I am familiar.

I don't agree with the argument of this article. I think that European policy is not radical enough, and that we need parties that push forward a decisive European agenda to unite the continent and reconstruct it.

Europe needs a real parliamentary democracy and an efficient bureaucracy, and in order to achieve this, it is much more practical to have English as the sole language. We could adopt another language, like French or German, but that seems extremely impractical, because every child in school has to learn English already. It seems to me that many Europeans see their language in a childish way. They don't want to be subordinated to the English-speaking world, and so they want to keep their own tongue as a point of self-esteem and honour. But we can't build a united Europe if every country acts egotistically. English is a good solution because it is the language of international communication, science and economy, and because there is no major English-speaking country in Europe (except the UK, which I hope will get out of the EU and stop disrupting it from the inside). If we choose another language, that might be seen as one-country hegemony, while keeping so many language simply costs a lot of money and is not practicable in the long run.

I read the article with a different thought in the back of my mind. I notice that most Germans are taught English at school (especially younger generations). And from them I notice that English is a sign of prestige—a sign that one is educated or has a good job. And I can see that, in companies which I have visited, little or no knowledge of English can be a negative aspect to one's employment opportunities or advancement in a company. And when I sit in on a meeting conducted in English, I notice that the participants all command English to different degrees. That influences their participation in the meeting and the dissemination of their knowledge and ideas.

I thought to myself during such a meeting: poor German, not being able to speak German in a German company in Germany.

That's only in the realm of employment. Of course Germans who do not speak English are employable. But how much would the EU's infamous 'democratic deficit' be extended when a sizable majority of its citizens could not read the laws by which they are governed? That would only decrease the distance between Brussels and the EU citizen, no matter how physically close they are.

The Economist is advocating a distinctly 'un-Green' policy. It doesn't take much effort of the imagination to realise that many millions of acres of trees have to be felled in order to facilitate all this unnecessary multi-translating. There are many other facets of the Economist's preferred policy which are no less wasteful.

The fact is that English has evolved, and is still rapidly evolving, into the world's common language, and the Economist would do better in celebrating the fact, the greater amount of unity it brings to human affairs, and the enormous cost, energy, and general 'Green' benefits that it brings.

One strongly suspects that the same people at the Economist who disparage the common use of English would be loudly proclaiming the benefits of Esperanto if that experiment in world language hadn't failed so dismally.

Surely you must know that all translations at EU level are done electronically and all documents archived online (print versions can be requested if needed). I find it funny how British Eurosceptics point the finger at the EU for being undemocratic and trumping national sovereignty, and yet oppose this fundamental principle of linguistic democracy that is so obvious to all the other member states. You can find all the excuses in the world, every EU citizen has the right to read official documents in a language he/she understands. It is not merely a question of democracy, the advantages of multilingualism are manyfold. Advanced cognitive skills, delayed onset of dementia, cultural awareness (perhaps the most important of all), and last but not least enormous gains in terms of GDP. SMEs and business in general need multilingualism; Europe in particular needs it to make the most out of the single market. The cultural aspect is definitely the most important (continental europeans have been learning 2-3 languages in school for a long time now), although it is really difficult for insular individuals with little cultural awareness to grasp this.

Well, my father was a translator at the Brussels Commission (in fact he was a 'reviser', he supervised other translators' work), and both then and now the EU employed an army of translators. Totally unnecessary if everyone was speaking English, which they all do in private anyway.

I do realise that it is all very galling to the Gallic sensibility, Monsieur Meursault, but then if Old Boney had won the Battle of Waterloo rather than losing it, doubtless we'd all be speaking French, and doubtless you somehow wouldn't have any objection to that.

English, you say, is evolving into the world's common language. This has some truth to it but whatever language may or may not emerge in several more generations as a global lingua franca may be quite different from present day English and speakers of one may not understand the other. Latin evolved into the language of much of Europe and European-influenced countries, but modern Rumanian, French or Portuguese speakers would not understand Cicero. Thank you, by the way, for mentioning Esperanto - always good for a laugh...

Your assumption that anyone commenting on the Economist should be a Monsieur made me smile. My nickname is simply a tribute to great literature, as I am an Italian Demoiselle and not a French Monsieur (so I doubt any "Gallic sensibility" was in play).

It is simply a question of linguistic democracy, and I can guarantee that in private we don't speak English at all. I speak my mother language, and so do all the Dutch, French, Spanish, Germans, Slovenians, Croatians, Estonians and so on.

Language is not a "mere" instrument of communication, it is a vehicle for Culture. I know it would be easier for you if everyone else spoke English and saved you the trouble of having to learn all those complicated languages and read all those obscure philosophers, writers and scientists with funny names in their original languages, but we in Europe would very much like to keep our respective cultures and languages, so I think you will have to adjust and start learning a foreign language. If we can handle 3 or more I'm sure you'll cope with at least one.

The discussion here is about which languages people should learn. People are able to learn languages much more easily if they begin before primary school. Even by middle primary school the students become cynical about foreign languages. When people are best equipped to learn a foreign language, they have virtually no say in the mater. The question at hand really is, "What languages should we have our children learn?"

There are serious psycholinguistic studies that suggest that learning a second language, any second language, in early childhood can have detrimental effects. 'Acquiring' may be different from 'learning' in this particular context, and I don't know if that has been explored. I speak a few languages but always feel uneasy when I see small children being 'taught' a second code. It is argued, and seems intuitively right to me, that one has a deep need to possess one's 'own' L1 language and this can be disturbed by teaching an L2 too soon.

Can you cite some of this research about detrimental effects? I have seen that children exposed early to two languages will speak somewhat later, and as children, will have somewhat smaller vocabularies in each language than comparable-age children (but of course their two combined vocabularies will be bigger). I have never seen a study that shows that it is harmful for cognitive development, and there is research about long-term cognitive benefits: see e.g. Ellen Bialystok on bilingualism and later onset of dementia, or other work on bilingualism and improved executive function.

I did not know that. I am sad that I did not learn a second language. German was compulsory in year 7 and 8. I studied German hard and actually failed. The prevailing view on the forums is that learning a second language is beneficial - certainly that is the politically correct view. Do you have references? Maybe should not be so sad.

There is a body of studies in Japan surrounding "semilingualism", whose main symptom is the loss of the ability to read and write Kanji when immersed in an alphabetical language environment before the end of compulsory education (age 15 or grade 9).
Loss of functional literacy in one's native language carries a severe consequence for his/her career.

It is unfortunate that Native English speakers would rather learn gazillions of faddish slang terms and phrases from Urban Dictionary and develop into a complete new patois, rather than learning a new language.

At a time when most of the countries in the EU are either riddled with crisis or are on the brink of doing so, sticking to one's own language for the sake of culture et al seems to be an idea worth selling. EU is not the first institution which has faced such problems. Countries such as the US and India too are great examples of unity in diversity. EU's case especially is analogous to India. 28 states and 28 different languages, none of which is English but still the unofficially-official language happens to be English. Maybe it's because they were ruled by the English once. They always had the option to exercise their language once they were free, but they chose not too. For a country so obsessed with culture and tradition, if it's possible to come together and adopt a language which isn't even their own, this seems to be a worthless debate.
One of the prime reasons why the crises hit the countries in EU is because of varying governance. EU was one medium to bring this problem at the table and sort it out by homogenizing. If we were to keep our systems intact then we shouldn't have joined EU in the first place. Encouraging multiple languages will only lead to asymmetric information as a lot of clauses get lost in translation. I'd personally hope that the governments stop bickering about such trivial issues and start looking towards the real welfare of their people in social and economics terms.

One could argue that English in India, or French in DR Congo are viable official languages because the way these languages were introduced is equally resented by all groups and because they are useful in themselves. No indigenous language has that utility or commands that degree of unanimity.

Hindi is spreading fast in India, overcoming resistance from southern states, as many companies demand knowledge of the local language, English plus Hindi from their recruits.In North India, where it is easier to learn Hindi, because of a common background (Sanskrit) shared by languages, Hindi is what a Bengali and a Gujarati would speak when they meet.

Excellent post. Let me juxtapose this with what India is doing to it's languages. India is a quasi federal country with most of economic and political powers being vested with the federal government at Delhi. States have very little things in their kitty. They struggle to raise revenues as they have very little means to raise revenue too. When you have such a centralised polity at the federal level, one would expect that the federal government would use all 22 scheduled languages to formulate laws, administer civil services but strangely India adopts English and Hindi alone as official language of the Union. English was kept because of the violent protests that happened at Tamilnadu state in South India in 1950s. But the federal government always believed that only Hindi unites India and it's the government's constitutional obligation to spread that language. It spends billions of taxpayers money in propagating that language. It even has a ministry of official language to oversee the penetration of Hindi. India has been divided into 3 regions. Region A is Hindi speaking states. Region B is Hindi related language states and Region C is non Hindi states. Every region is given a target under Official language act to increase hindi usage every year. Karnataka falls in Region C and two offices with in this state should communicate at least 55% of all their communication in Hindi is the target given now ! This is so anti diversity!

Very interesting post. I knew Hindi and English were India's two official languages, but I did not know they had a government department devoted to spreading Hindi at the expense of its other languages.

I believe that English is important for being spoken in USA. I am from Turkey. I agree that EU should not make everyone learn English. The developments in science in the USA are higher than Europe. And, in the USA, English is spoken.

Well, I think Johnson is right about the desireability of learning foreign languages in general and wrong about the Babylonian confusion of languages in the EU. Translation of every written or spoken word costs a lot of money. Surely, there is a strong pragmatic case to be made for restricting everyone in the EU to one official language. English is the obvious choice. But to assuage the outraged feelings of the French, Germans, Poles and others, let me suggest that American English be made the official language of the EU. That way, the French could correct English representatives' spelling and pronunciation. How delicious a prospect!

I cannot understand why anyone would push for Esperanto. It is an artificial language, created to be a common, yet neutral language. This might work for creating a common language within Europe, but what happens when Esperanto speakers want to communicate outside of Europe? They are back to being forced to use English! So why are some Europeans so hell bent on reinventing the wheel? There is already an international, common language, and it is a European one at that.

Esperanto is such a poor choice. Unless you convince the citizens of America, Australia, Canada, India etc... to also learn Esperanto (which they won't), Esperanto would simply be another quaint, useless language that nobody outside of Europe will bother with. English is the only way.

Ok, first of all regarding "artificial". After 100+ years of use it is no more artificial than say modern Hebrew, which was basically reinvented in late 19th century - in fact about the same time when Esperanto was invented. I don't hear Israelis complaining about their language being "artificial". The same could be true about Esperanto after few decades of wide-spread use.

I do not understand your point regarding "outside Europe". The article is about multilingualism in the EU, not UN. What do we care if Esperanto is good for "outside Europe", if it's *inside* Europe we are talking about?

Regarding convincing someone to learn Esperanto. Again, what does America and Australia have to do with languages in the EU? Also, good luck convincing most of Europe to speak decent English :)

To be honest with you, I don't really care what languages are spoken in Europe, and what language would be chosen as a common language. It doesn't really effect me.

Anyway, Esperanto serves one function. That is, to be a common language that all Europeans understand, and can conduct official business in.

English (if chosen to be the common official language) would serve two functions. That is, to be a common language that all Europeans understand, and can conduct official business in. And, it is in widespread use outside of Europe.

Not really making any grand statements here about the Esperanto. I am just saying that IF English would be chosen it would be more practical. That's pretty understandable.

"Also, good luck convincing most of Europe to speak decent English :)"

I suspect there would be resistance to this simply because its English, and for no other reason. People can be stubborn.

"I suspect there would be resistance to this simply because its English, and for no other reason."

That's probably true regarding any language. Esperanto is unique here, because it does not "belong" to any particular country or culture. Therefore nobody can claim to have a perfect pronunciation, or the right idioms, etc. As long as others can understand you, and you follow some basic rules, your Esperanto *is* good, simply because there are no native speakers to compare against.

But there are other reasons to prefer Esperanto. Natural languages are very difficult to master (and English is no exception here - believe me, I've been struggling with it most of my adult life). In comparison, Esperanto could be grasped in fraction of that time.

I agree that Esperanto (or something like that) is a good candidate: and I support Vilius's point: the point is to promote a pan-european language, not a language for the UN; so other native English speakers should not have any advantage.

So the French could use the three languages in their traffic signs: French, English, Esperanto. It would be great to listen to a parliamentary debate in Esperanto.

I get the slight feeling there's an impression that the Europeans are insular and effete; So I am curious as to whether learning only other European languages would only reinforce this.

This may be slightly Utopian and idealistic, but maybe learning languages from other cultural families, would be beneficial in having Europeans learn about cultures outside of Europe and help them refine their own identities through these differences.

Agree, this topic is really interesting. Almost all European languages share the same root, but Europeans are still hesitate to apply a single writing system to improve the workforce mobility in that continent. Maybe a new invented common writing language can help resolve this problem. Of course, it can be English, but out of emotion reason, a new writing language is easier to be accepted in all countries.

East Asian countries, like China, Japan and Korean, shared a single writing language based on classical Chinese official language, which is different from the oral language that Chinese people speak everyday, and could only be understood among the educated elite group, before 19th century. Today, only Japan is still using Kanji(Chinese writing system).